The Vashon Green School is a place-based multi-age learning community located on 7 acres of farm and woodlands, on Vashon’s Westside. We offer a hands-on, hearts-on embodied curriculum rooted in practices that promote social intelligence and connection to the natural world. Our curriculum seeks to provide children with tools and support for living a full, balanced and creative life by giving equal value to each of the four windows of knowing: feeling, imagining, sensing and thinking. Mentors honor each child’s unique gifts and learning styles, supported by our small mentor-student ratio. VGS children, mentors and families journey together to create a learning community rooted in compassion, connection and gratitude.

bird's eye

“Most primary
education curricula place nearly exclusive emphasis on reading, writing, math
and general knowledge. Other dimensions of learning (for example, nature, the
arts, mythology, cosmology, self-care, emotional intelligence, and social
skills) are commonly dismissed or minimized. We neglect whole spectrums of
knowledge and social, emotional, and spiritual competence vital to being human
like the ability to grieve fully, make music spontaneously, resolve conflicts,
engage in mutual storytelling, acquire self-knowledge, work with dreams, be at
home in nature, cultivate relations with other-than-human beings, and co-create
the simple ceremonies that honor and revitalize our relationship to the seasons
and to the Sun and Moon and stars.”
(Nature and the Human Soul, Bill Plotkin)

Vashon Green School is an educational journey that weaves together the wonder and passion of young people, the wise eyes and skilled hands of adult mentors, and the honest teachings of plants and animals. Farm and forest classrooms offer each student the chance to build ongoing relationship with the more than human world.

Through storytelling, hands-on projects and core routines, children deepen awareness of and connection to the natural cycles, as well as to themselves and their community. VGS integrates the main lesson curriculum of math, reading, writing, applied science & spanish language with core routines, music and experiential arts-based learning. Lesson flow and activities draw from theme and seasonally-based curriculum. Compassionate communication is fundamental to VGS mentoring practices. Our community of families gather for Seasonal Celebrations.